With the advent of the computer age, computer and software users have grown accustomed to receiving, retrieving, generating and storing vast amounts of data in the form of a variety of electronic documents and document objects. For example, users commonly store word processing documents, slide presentation documents, spreadsheet documents, database files, calendaring and contacts files, and the like, in local and remote file storage systems. A significant problem arises, however, when a user needs to find a particular document or document object (portion of a document) among hundreds or even thousands of documents or document objects.
Search mechanisms are available for searching across a general file system for a given text string or other identifying data, but such mechanisms often take a great deal of time, and the results may not be satisfactory, particularly, where a user is looking for a particular data object, such as a chart or a picture located in a given document. Systems also have been developed for applying a piece of metadata to a given document or document object, for example, a colored flag, for assisting the user in subsequently locating the marked item. However, such systems do not allow for a standard marking or flagging of associated items across a file system having documents and document objects generated and/or stored via a variety of different software applications, for example, word processors, spreadsheet applications, slide presentation applications, calendaring applications, and the like. Moreover, such systems do not provide a summary view of all flagged items across a general file system and across multiple application types. The result causes users to maintain separate management techniques and mechanisms for each set of marked or flagged items under each application file type.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.